Lik Sang () was a distributor of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

n electronics. The company sold import games, toys, figures,

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

-related items, and obscure adapters and controllers for various video game platforms. Lik Sang closed as of October 24, 2006, as a result of multiple

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

s filed against them by

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

History

Launch

Lik-Sang was established in 1998 in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. It became well known for its sales of

modchip A modchip (short for modification chip) is a small electronic device used to alter or disable artificial restrictions of computers or entertainment devices. Modchips are mainly used in video game consoles, but also in some DVD or Blu-ray players ...

s for

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

s that enabled the normally locked-down consoles to play import and homebrew games, but it also allowed the use of

pirated Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...

video games. The modchips were not all physical chips; they included devices such as flash cartridges that allow

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

users to upload

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

s and homebrew applications onto the device, and play them as if it were a regular gaming cartridge.

Legal issues

In 2002, the company was sued by major video game console producers, such as

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American video game and digital entertainment company that is a major subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. It primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game co ...

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

and

Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, alleging

contributory copyright infringement Contributory copyright infringement is a way of imposing secondary liability for infringement of a copyright. It is a means by which a person may be held liable for copyright infringement even though he or she did not directly engage in the infring ...

as the

s (and other related devices) enabled playing of unauthorized video game titles on those consoles. The

High Court of Hong Kong The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a part of the legal system of Hong Kong. It consists of the Court of Appeal and the Court of First Instance; it deals with criminal and civil cases which have risen beyond the ...

granted

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

s preventing Lik-Sang from selling these devices. After these suits, Lik-Sang began expanding its area of expertise by reinventing itself (under a new owner) as a vendor of legitimate, but obscure, accessories, such as

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

games A game is a Structure, structured type of play (activity), play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an Educational game, educational tool. Many games are also considered to be Work (human activity), work (such as p ...

merchandise Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of Product (business), products ("merch" colloquially) to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative w ...

, and

t-shirt A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt, or tee for short) is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a '' crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shir ...

Partnering with independent developers

Lik-Sang was a strong supporter of the Dreamcast Community, in 2003 they partnered with Dreamcast-Scene (DCS) and GOAT Store to promote independently developed games, they had an exclusive deal with GOAT Store that made them the sole distributor of all independently released games until their demise in 2006. With GOAT Store Publishing they distributed 4 games offering free shipping all over the world.

Closure

In August 2005, the company was once again in legal trouble, this time from

. Lik-Sang had imported

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

devices from areas where they were available, and re-exported them to UK customers before the UK release date, which Sony alleged was a violation of trademark rights. Lik-Sang continued shipping PSPs, claiming Hong Kong's trademark law follows the principle of international exhaustion of trademark rights and therefore allows an item to be traded freely once it appears in a market anywhere in the world. On October 18, 2006, the High Court in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

(Patents Court) ruled the shipments were indeed in breach of Sony's rights. The following day, Lik-Sang posted a message on their website claiming they had been forced out of business due to Sony's legal action. Sony responded in a statement saying that Lik-Sang had not contested the case, thus incurring no legal fees, and had not paid any damages or costs to Sony. However, Lik-Sang replied once more that their legal representatives spent over a year to contest the UK's court jurisdiction and tried to defend against Sony's allegations of parallel importation and copyright infringement, and that Sony launched duplicate actions in different countries. According to Lik-Sang's final statements, two different judges expressed their surprise about the high legal expenses claimed by Sony. Since October 24, 2006, Lik-Sang's website has been offline. The Lik-Sang forums have also been closed down. Between 2006 and 2014, the domain carried only a letter to former customers in regards to the ruling, and the circumstances surrounding it. Since 2014, the domain simply redirects to this Wikipedia article.

Court decisions against Lik Sang

The following decisions against Lik Sang can be read on-line:
SCEI v Lik Sang International Ltd
(High Court of Hong Kong, 2003)

(High Court of Hong Kong, 2003)

(UK Patents Court, 2006)

Legacy

Lik-Sang is widely known in console gaming circles. Some even form a

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

with the name, as in "I could Lik-Sang the controller if I had the money", and cult game site

Penny Arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...

often spoke about Lik-Sang and featured them in their

webcomics Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

. Famed iPhone and PlayStation jailbreaker Geohot makes mention of Lik Sang in his rap response to Sony's lawsuit against him, where he raps "I shed a tear every time I think of Lik Sang".

References

{{Reflist

External links

Lik Sang in Trouble With Sony

Lik Sang's website in Archive.org
Companies established in 1998 Online-only retailers of video games Defunct companies of Hong Kong Defunct websites